Cross-Cultural Literature - Essay Example

?Cross Cultural Literature The influence of culture on styles of communicating and negotiating in business Introduction Literature is basically defined as anything that is based on reality, creativity and imagination. It gives idea of something which connects to life of individuals. Talking in context of cross culture, literature is defined as the literary culture understanding. Whereas, cross cultural understanding is defined as the basic ability that people have within the culture to communicate and to exchange ideas, goods, services and other things just to enhance and expand their business and exchange. It is also a way to change perception regarding one’s culture and instead of stereotyping, people should learn the beliefs of others. While going global, the diversification is much more and one gets a chance to deal with different type of dealing with various types of people who are different from them in terms of culture, religion, habits and much more. At that time it is important for one to know the aspects of dealing with the diversification. Cross Cultural literature is important because of the consistent changing of trends from West to East. Communication Challenges in Cross Culture Communication is a great challenge while moving into the different cultures because if one act is followed in one culture then it’s not necessary that the same act will also be supported in other cultures. While going global or Glocal in business, the management should have the international understanding of the cultures so that it gets easier for them to communicate with different classes of people. There are certain cultural variables that need to be studied while communicating with different people; Attitudes It means stereotyping. Usually people when they move from one country to another for work purpose, these types of problems arise. Managers or employees working in that environment start over generalizing those who are different from their cultures. Social Organization When people work in team or as units, they get closer to one another and they tend to fill gaps between two different cultures. It means that collectively grouping can bring a change in cultural variations and it also reduces stereotyping which is socially acceptable. Thought Patterns It basically means the type of information that people gather from their experiences and learning from past or present. Role Role means the status and level of one based on his age. Usually every individual is treated equally but within these rules people try to discriminate their companions or subordinate. Language Language is a bridge between various cultures. It create the big difference because while communication there are different meanings of different statements. Example: “COME OUT OF THE GRAVE WITH PEPSI” This statement is considered right in context of west culture but when it comes to regions or cultures like India, this statement is proved to be wrong. For India where majority is the follower of Hinduism, this statement is not effective because it’s hitting their cultural values. So while sharing any idea regarding something, one should be alert or aware of the words he/she is using to give the idea because it may or may not directly pointing their culture but indirectly it could be taken in wrong meanings. One more example is “When YES doesn’t mean YES”. It means that when Chinese, Japanese and Pakistanis say YES while talking to someone, that doesn’t means that they will follow your commands, it actually means that “YES we are listening to you”. Non-Verbal Communication Non-Verbal Communication plays a very important role in context of cultural diversification. It includes kinesics behavior (E.g., Sticking out the tongue in China); Power distances (Proximity- E.g. The corner office, Closeness when talking), Paralanguage (e.g. the sound of silence), Objective Language (E.g. Monochronic vs. Polychronic) and most importantly eye contact. Trust in conducting Business within cross cultures There are some countries that do negotiate in business with high propensity of trust. It includes, Nordic Countries, China, Canada, US & Britain. It is because an effective communication internationally can only be perform when these is informal understanding among the parties involve in business. The ratio of trust is higher because they have to deal with the western world. Business transactions are also based on long standing relationships and arm’s length relationships. Moreover, there are also such places which have low propensity of trust. It includes places like Brazil, Turkey, Romania, Slovenia, and Latvia. They avoid conflicts and try to develop themselves within their own resources and culture. Doing business and negotiating with them is highly difficult because they show lack of trust on other parties. The Project Globe followed in Conducting Businesses The project globe defines the important types of characteristics that are found in business managers from different cultures High Performance Orientation E.g. United States - High performance oriented business managers are more extroverts. They move forward on the bases of objectives rather than being subjective for any problem. They are more direct towards their aims and follow monochronic behavior of work. Low Assertiveness It defines that how people tend to be relaxed. It includes places like Sweden, New Zealand, and Switzerland. Managers from such places are calm and relaxed and focus on their own people instead of conflicts of others. Working and negotiating with such managers is easier because they tend to be more calm while dealing and managing things. Low Assertive countries have sympathy for weak people and emphasize more on loyalty of work and relations and solidarity. Whereas High Assertive places like Germany, Greece and Austria are more reactive and aggressive because they are future oriented and more focused on work and objectives. Managers from such places are future oriented and tend to be more realistic. They are more tough and competitive. Their societies and businesses usually have higher competition. And they protect their cultures too. High Humane Oriented -- Such counties avoid conflicts and support others. E.g. Ireland Culture Influence in Communicating and Negotiating Business While communicating and negotiating in business, there are several dimensions that should be considered with respect to diversification of cultures. To reduce the diversification in managing businesses it is important for the managers to study the cultural differences to avoid any unethical act. Cross Cultural understanding is important because it makes people to recognize, react, perceive and to interpret the situations and dilemmas that causes misunderstanding due to cultural differences. Cultures are basically in the forms of clusters. While studying dimensions, two important dimensions are studied more. One is of Hofstede’s Dimensions and another is of Trompenaar’s Dimensions. Few Hofstede’s and Trompenaar’s Dimensions Applicable in Negotiating Business Universalism vs. Particularism This is “Trompenaar’s dimension” which states that universal type of cultures are those that show sensitivity to other cultures and are more flexible in dealing with other cultures. Negotiating in businesses are more easy because managers feel comfortable in dealing with host countries. Such countries show comfort ability to adopt and to lead others to practice their culture and norms which are acceptable by international laws too. Such countries include USA, SWEDEN and GERMANY. Managers from such countries are flexible in negotiating with other countries. But particularistic types of cultures show no such flexibility. They show no sensitivity towards other cultures. It includes JAPAN, SPAIN and CHINA. When any western manager comes to negotiate for business they have to be careful because such countries are more concern towards preserving their own cultures from external forces. Doing business with such countries are more complex for managers and for such countries, managers should be well trained. Long Term Vs. Short Term This is “Hofstede’s Dimension” which explains that long term orientation cultures are those that follow subjective approach. It Includes China, Japan, Taiwan, Pakistan, India because these places are more subjective oriented rather then objective. Negotiating businesses in this region is a bit difficult for any western manager because they belong from short term oriented cultures that follow objective rather then subjective. They work on the condition of high performance and uncertainty avoidance, whereas East part is completely opposite from this theory. So for manager from west it’s difficult to manage business as they don’t make contingency plans usually and leave things on time. Uncertainty Avoidance It is also “Hofstede’s Dimension” which states the avoidance of any problem in advance or to make contingency plans. In high uncertainty avoidance managers tend to make low risk decisions, employees are not aggressive, work in a very light environment, and lifetime employment is common because of high performance and efficient use of resources. But in low uncertainty avoidance cultures are more comfortable with ambiguity. In these cultures, company activities are less formal and structured, managers take more risks in fact much more risk is their because of no contingency plans, and employees have more job mobility. Variables that cause problems for Westerners to negotiate with Easterners Time --“Tomorrow”- There is no tomorrow for Americans or any western business oriented societies because they follow the theory of “doing work right here right now”. But when Managers come to deal with East part especially South Asian region then it creates difficulty to work. Change-- Americans believe that if someone possesses expertise or talents for a particular field, then despite of the fact that he/she doesn’t belong to that field even then he/she should come up to work in that particular filed. They are change-oriented and look for utilization of expertise and natural abilities. Individualism -- West appreciates individual performance rather then collectivist performance. Managers look for someone who is individually performing good and helping in generating profit. Negotiating and Communicating in business in Arabian Culture A company from West coming to Arabian region finds difficulty in negotiating in business because of a wide gap of cultural differences. Examples of the problems that were faced by Western companies include Mc Donald’s; they stop serving when men/women are called for prayer for five times a day. Pizza Hut in Saudi Arabia has separate dining rooms divided by genders and Saks made a separate floor for women only. Although it is seen that now women are working side by side with men but still that difference is not completely eliminated and in such places where Muslims are in large numbers the difference is still there at work place. The women of Saudi Arabia wear Abayas even if they are wearing high end fashionable attires.. These examples show that managers who are working internationally must alter their approaches according to host country environment, and should not underestimate the importance of culture. Negotiating in Business in China China is one of those countries that have highly protected their culture. They restricted external forces to attack or to take place in their society. One of the examples is of Google. Google faced environmental issues in China. They want Google to censor its website because Chinese government was more concern about their social and environmental issues. Yahoo, Microsoft and Skype faced the same issue. Developing top managers with international understanding for negotiating in business Usually it is observed that success of any product depends on the higher consumption and profit generation from host countries as compared to the home-country of the product. This success if achieved through the managers negotiations done in different regions keeping their culture in mind. Coca-Cola has its 80% of sales generated outside the home market and same goes with Procter and Gamble, they generated sales of 65% outside the home market. This is due to the good communication of managers in order to create good relations globally. So, it clearly shows that Cross cultural literature is important in performing business activities because without understanding of any culture, an organization may fail to perform or to establish good reputation. For any organization it is important to create global recognition and to serve people all over the world with their services and the best service can only be given when organizations work according to the people’s expectations and then nations welcome such organizations. To avoid any issue or big conflict, managers should create good relations with host countries. REFERENCES Deborah, T. (1983). Cross-cultural communication. CATESOL Occasional Papers, (10), 1-16. http://eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED253061.pdf Madhani, B. (December 6, 1999). Staying relevant in the face of demographic change. The Philanthropist, 16(1), http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:SLqm5ONZMRsJ:www.thephilanthropist.ca/index.php/phil/article/download/111/111+come+out+of+grave+with+pepsi&hl=en&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESiuJz8q3WytIvXD22m2HGn8NjBmym7RKjDqyAZq4VEyEmxZwcGdgRs4kcDn3vdlWxg8wClFeOIOmU9lSb8mFp60dm4u5vJ8JadRT1RQ8K9jNQQEJaKkKjqWR0fVre-9WE92Nmdl&sig=AHIEtbRrgah4l3zYxLdEpYrviXlLuyLZVA Walker, D, Walker, T, & Schmitz, J. (2003). Doing business internationally: The guide to cross-cultural success. United States of America: McGraw Hill. http://books.google.com.pk/books?id=YrEygbsX4cYC&printsec=frontcover&dq=cross+cultural+communication+in+business&hl=en&ei=OBW3TdG2OYKp8QO2pI02&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CF4Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=cross%20cultural%20communication%20in%20business&f=false Carey, J. (2008). Communication as culture: Essays on media and society. United Kingdom: Routledge. http://books.google.com.pk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=hZO1Xmus5_AC&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=culture+on+styles+of+communication&ots=m7FzV-Ri8x&sig=Fz3aZFh3X_7SloZBp-BPpd6sBho#v=onepage&q=culture%20on%20styles%20of%20communication&f=false Stevenson, C. (2007). Breaching the great firewall: China's internet censorship and the quest for freedom of expression in the connected world. Boston College International and Comparative Law Review, 30(2), 531-558. http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1074&context=iclr&sei-redir=1#search=%22censorship+issue+in+china,+yahoo,+google,+microsoft%22 Read More